Chapter 229
Chapter 230
FAYE
I was seated on a woven mat on the floor, my legs crossed, my palms resting loosely on my knees. Helen sat across from me, mirroring my posture with effortless grace.
The room was quiet in the way sacred places always were–not silent, but alive with a kind of stillness that made every breath feel intentional. But it was just Helen’s bedroom. The window curtains were drawn just enough to let in soft daylight.
“Close your eyes, dear,” Helen said gently.
I obeyed, letting my lashes fall shut as I inhaled slowly, then exhaled the way she had taught me–steady, controlled, deliberate. At some point, what had begun as a simple conversation had shifted.
One moment, we were talking about balance, and the next, I was stretching, breathing, listening to her voice guide me inward. It felt less like a lesson and more like being eased into myself.
“Don’t force it,” Helen continued. “Just listen. To your body first. Then to what sits beneath it.”
I rolled my shoulders back as she instructed, easing tension I hadn’t realized was there. My body responded easily, but my mind… my mind was restless. Thoughts drifted in and out, refusing to stay quiet for long. I tried to focus on my breathing, on the way the mat felt beneath me, on the warmth in the room.
“Tell me what you feel,” Helen said after a while.
I hesitated. “Calm,” I said finally. It wasn’t entirely a lie. “And… restless.” It didn’t make sense, but Helen seemed to understand.
She hummed softly, as if that answer confirmed something for her. “You are holding yourself back,” she said.
My eyes flew open. “I’m trying.”
She didn’t react to my sharpness. She simply opened her eyes too, her gaze steady and knowing. “You are,” she said calmly. “But you are afraid of fully embracing your powers.”
“I’m not afraid,” I said, the words coming too quickly.
Helen tilted her head slightly. “Fear doesn’t always look like panic,” she said. “Sometimes it looks like restraint. Like caution. Like choosing to do very little when you could do much
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more.”
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I swallowed, my fingers curling slightly against my knees, “I don’t understand what you mean, “I said, though even as I spoke, the words felt weak… I might have an idea.
“You could do more,” she said softly. “You know that.”
I looked away, my gaze drifting to the far wall. The truth sat uncomfortably in my chest. I had felt it before–this sense that there was more within me, more waiting, pressing against some invisible barrier I had built.
Helen’s voice cut through my thoughts. “What was the first vision you ever had?”
My heart skipped. Just once.
I hesitated, then answered. “Alexander.”
Her brow furrowed slightly. “Go on.”
“I saw him standing,” I said slowly, the memory rising. “He was bleeding… dying.” My throat tightened. “And it came to pass.”
Helen’s expression didn’t change, but I felt the shift in the air between us.
“I didn’t know then,” I continued, my voice quieter now, “if it could have been avoided. I still don’t know. That’s what haunts me.” I finally looked back at her. “When I see things… are they sealed? Fixed? Or was there something I could do to change it?”
Helen studied me for a long moment. Then she nodded slowly, as if a missing piece had fallen into place.
“You are afraid,” she said gently, “that seeing it is what calls it forth.”
The words landed hard.
I opened my mouth to argue, then stopped. Because when I really thought about it–when I stripped away my defenses–I couldn’t say she was wrong.
Fear stirred, deep and familiar.
“What if,” I said quietly, “by seeing it, I make it inevitable?”
Helen leaned forward slightly. “And what if,” she countered just as softly, “you were meant to see it so you could prevent it?”
My breath caught.
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The room felt warmer suddenly, or maybe it was just me. My thoughts unraveled, one after the other, until I found myself speaking without fully meaning to.
“Recently, I was having dinner with Alexander,” I said, the words spilling out. “It was a date. We were laughing. Everything was… good.” I swallowed. “And then it happened.”
Helen didn’t interrupt.
“The room changed,” I continued. “Just for a moment. I was still there, but not really.” I felt my fingers tremble slightly, and I clenched them into fists. “I saw myself standing in a nursery. There was a baby cot in front of me. Empty.”
Helen’s eyes softened, but she said nothing.
“Alexander was there too,” I whispered. “Standing a few steps away. He looked like he wanted to come to me. Like he wanted to hold me.” My chest tightened painfully. “But he didn’t. And I was alone. ”
Silence stretched between us.
“A part of me told myself it was nothing,” I went on, forcing a small, dry laugh. “That it was just my mind… just me expecting something to go wrong because things have been too good.” I shook my head. “I tried to dismiss it. I really did.”
But I couldn’t.
“Every now and then,” I admitted, “the image comes back. The empty cot, the distance between us. And no matter how much I tell myself it means nothing, I can’t stop thinking
about it.”
Helen finally spoke. “When did you see this vision?”
I met her gaze, my voice barely above a whisper.
“On my birthday.”
Helen didn’t react right away. She didn’t gasp or stiffen or look at me with pity, and somehow that made it harder to breathe. She simply held my gaze, her eyes steady, thoughtful, as if she were listening not just to my words but to everything underneath them.
“That’s a lot,” she said.
I swallowed. “That’s not comforting.”
A faint smile touched her lips.
She shifted on the mat, folding her hands loosely in her lap. “When you saw the vision, how
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did it make you feel?”
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I frowned, the question forcing me inward. “Cold,” I said after a moment. “Like something had been taken from me before I even knew how to hold it.” My chest tightened. “And angry… not at Alexander. Just… at the space between us, at the silence.”
Helen nodded slowly. “And fear?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “That too.”
She exhaled softly, as though confirming something she already suspected. “Your gift doesn’t show you what is fixed,” she said. “It shows you what is possible.”
I shook my head. “But Alexander’s death- ”
“He’s alive, isn’t he?” she cut in gently.
I froze.
She leaned forward slightly. “You saw him dying. And yet, he lives… which means something changed. You brought him back… stopping him from staying dead.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it again.
“And the baby?” I asked quietly. “What if that’s different? What if some things can’t be changed? What if something is going to take my child away?”
Helen studied me for a long moment, then reached out, placing her palm flat over the space just above my heart. The contact was warm.
“Fear clouds clarity, ” she said. “And right now, fear is louder than your intuition.”
I laughed softly, without humor. “That’s not exactly news.”
She smiled faintly. “You are standing at the edge of your power, Faye. But instead of stepping forward, you’ve been bracing for impact.”
I closed my eyes, her words hitting uncomfortably close to home.
“What if,” I whispered, “the vision is a warning?”
“Then it is an invitation,” Helen replied. “To act. To prepare. To trust yourself.”
I opened my eyes again. “Are you saying I should ignore it?”
“I’m saying that holding your breath doesn’t change anything,” she said.
Something in my chest loosened at that. Just a little.
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I drew in a slow breath, then another. “What about the fact that every time I feel my wolf now, “I said, “it’s stronger, louder. And the pregnancy…” I trailed off, shaking my head. “It’s like everything is happening at once.”
“That is because you are no longer fragmented,” Helen said. “Your spirit, your wolf, your body. -they are aligning. Alignment can feel overwhelming before it feels empowering.”
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